Desecrate
by immatureimp
Summary: Lust consumes, blood burns, and all roads lead to redemption...except when they don't.


Warnings _(This is definitely **not** a feel-good story, please heed the warnings): _Yaoi Truhan, hints of NON-CON, Blood, Knife play, and a sinfully sacrilegious play at cliche-ism...

Disclaimer: No own, don't sue.

Mood Music _(what I listened to as I wrote this): _Suck, Closer, The Wretched, Sin, Somewhat Damaged, Please, Underneath It All, Mr. Self-Destruct, Gave Up, Sanctified, Something I Can Never Have, The Perfect Drug

All by Nine Inch Nails, various cds

Beta'd by the incredible Mistress Renet.

**Desecrate I**

_(Gohan's POV)_

**We've only once had a real conversation. No deep reflections, no explanations, just clarification, of what we're doing, of what it all means. Illumination isn't found in words, just in actions and my returning every single time is clear enough.  
**  
_"This won't happen again," I said, ignoring the denial echoing through my head, because lying is the only way I can bear to leave. _

Reclining in a bed that stunk of blood and semen, Trunks lit a cigarette and smirked. "Shouldn't and won't are two different things, Saiyaman."

I scowled and shoved away. "I'm leaving now."

"Yeah," he replied softly. "You leave. You're so good at that."

Prick. He didn't understand how hard this was. I raked a hand through Trunks' hair and pulled his head back roughly, knocking his scalp against the hard wood.

"You smell like her," he grunted accusingly through tightly clenched teeth.

I never mention Videl.

"Why do you have to smell like her?"

"Because I can't leave her," I said with a frown, releasing his hair. My finger caressed the tattered flesh of his neck; my jaw ached with the need to taste him again.

"You mean you won't." Nothing new, same old story. And I hear him, of course. Always have. Nothing will change though. She never matters when I'm here with him, not the way he does when I'm there with her...

"Why do you come here?"

Trunks shrugged, leaned over the side of the bed, and picked up his jeans. "Because you need me."

"Don't you have a better reason?"

He didn't respond.

I swung my feet over the covers and sat on the edge of the bed, eyes staring sightlessly into peeling wallpaper. "Absolution," I whispered. Wishing I believed it.

"What?" He asked, lighting a new cigarette and reaching for his t-shirt.

I ran a hand over my forehead, tried to explain. "In the Dark Ages, penitents could purchase atonement from their priests. No Acts of Contrition, just- money. They could... buy... forgiveness."

Socks. Boots. Dressing like the conversation wasn't important. "Sounds like a great marketing strategy to me."

It would. "But it wasn't real."

"Did they think it was real?" Trunks asked me, finding his belt and threading it through the loops of his pants. "Did they believe it?"

"I'm sure they did," I sighed.

"Then what's the difference?"

I looked up at him in surprise. "You think God can be bought off?"

"You forget, Gohan, I've met our God." Trunks scoffed. "If he'd been listening in the first place, then they wouldn't have needed a priest. And yes, I believe that everyone has their price."

Everyone? I turned to face him. "What's yours?"

And Trunks paused, cigarettes and coat in his hand. "Me? I'm obviously cheap."

"Trunks..."

"Look, you can call this atonement, you can call it an act of contrition...Believe whatever you want if it helps you sleep at night." Sticking the cigarette back between his lips, Trunks inhaled deeply, blowing the smoke out on a breath filled with heavy resignation. "To me it's just fucking. I'll be here waiting. Every. God. Damn. Time."

**We don't talk anymore.**

It starts in the palm of my hands. An itch. Strange how it happens. Strange that it starts there. Not in my chest, not even in my groin, just this constant itch in my palms. It's always been this way. When the need starts, my hands start to burn, then they itch. And the longer I ignore it, the worse it becomes, finally turning this angry red and the skin just peels away.

This hellish bond demanding attention, demanding me to concede, to quit pretending it doesn't exist.

**But instead, I stave off the urge as long as I can.**

It begins to take up all of my attention, this need that sears from the inside, so intensely that it is scarring my palms. Trembling hands and every cell in my body screaming "Trunks." The bond pulls at me, begging me to give into its tormenting call. And finally it gets to be too much, the shaking and the craving, the peeling and the pain...And I give into it.

**"This is the last time. This is the last time. This is the last time."**

Take the flight there slow and lazy. Three hours and it's too long and not long enough. What will happen to my hands if I refuse? Will the burns spread, tattooing my skin with my sin? Like a scarlet letter 'A'? Or maybe it already has, but I'm too deep in my denial to see it. Too deep in the thorns of self-reproach that my hands don't sweat anymore.

Why do the street lights in this town always seem to sputter like dying stars? Thousands of rendezvous joints between here and there, and he picks this hole in the wall. Places covered in hideous pastel, cheap paint chipping off stucco walls and poorly tiled roofs. Neon signs with various letters missing. By some unknown design, the exclamation points always work. Thousands, and there is no use wondering how I know exactly where to go, it's only important that I do. Land in the darkened lot, the wonder is gone with the slam of a door. Flip on the lamp, strip out of my clothes.

Disembodied voice from the shadows. No flash of blue eyes. The dimness hides the betrayal, the glint of what should be there. Flash of a bare back beneath tattered covers, as pale shoulders rise easily with the words,

**"Late from saving the world again, Saiyaman?" **

Gentle swoosh of clothing hitting the floor. "Yeah."

**He looks tired.**

But I don't think about that. Won't dwell on just how impossible this situation is, the toll it invokes on each of us, but more especially him.

I flick on the ceiling fan, listening to the motor sputter and start, the whirl twisting the stale air inside the room. Half a dozen cigarettes, half smoked on the bedside table. Blue smoke sucked toward the blades of the fan, disincarnate ghosts spinning in the shadows.

And I shed humanity at the door like snakeskin. Layers and layers of too many skins, but the man in the bed only wants one. The real one, hidden under the everyday facade of ordinary. Because there's nothing normal about me. Nothing normal about him. Nothing normal about this.

Sheets cool and wrinkled, blanket of red, rough wool. Naked skin beneath them crafted from hail and steel. Smooth, warm flesh of cheek and thigh and chest and it quiets my angry palms. And he starts, he always starts. And I let him, pretend I'm doing this for him. _Pretend pretend pretend..._ and he lets me, bares my shame, takes the responsibility and the blame and begins.

**Less guilt for me.**

Skin on skin, touches too gentle, too rough, nails scraping, fingers clenching and my hands grope bones barely covered by flesh. But I won't wonder about it, because thinking causes feelings, and I can't allow myself to feel, can't allow this to be more than it is. Instead tongues battle for dominance, kisses with eyes pressed shut and mouths wide open. Here, taste it, taste me from the inside.

Conscious thought was left on the other side of the door. Grab for a length of hair that is no longer there, a thick head of hair and growl at its lack. Grab a fistful of shorn lavender instead, and pull...pull the head back and drink the sacrifice of his future.

Trunks' blood tastes of wild horses. Sweat and running. Thrill and racing. And even though I have never tasted that before, it comes to me again now. And I can't keep up, it's too fast. Unable to race. At least horses get put out of their misery.

So I take it, take as much as I can, swallow the feast, but I know this...There is no fountain of misspent youth here. This is no chalice of forgetfulness. What I do now, I do with the complete knowledge of one who knows better.

It's just blood. Familiar blood, sweet and warm and thick as syrup, but just blood. It has no inherent meaning, it changes nothing. It isn't sacrament. Oh I wish it was, wish it was ritual and holy and full of ancient intent.

Wish this sacrifice would alter some grand design. Wish it would soothe my soul and Trunks' heart. But all that is soothed here is the hunger and the burn in my hands. And even that lasts only a moon.

Still, if I breathe deep and swallow fast, I can almost catch it. That sharp taste of purity, that biting keen of something otherworldly. Almost smell sunshowers and fire on the man beneath me, because Trunks is pure wildness untamed, a wildness I crave.

**Drink here and live forever.**

I will remember this, much later. I will forget the name of this motel, and the scratch of rough cheap blankets on my back, and the sound of the headboard banging against the wall. But some night, when I conjure the image of lavender hair and blue eyes, I will hold my breath, sink my teeth into my own tongue and be able to taste fire-tested steel cooled by rain and remember him.

Don't think about it. Regrets change nothing. And I can't fault this bond. It didn't make me into something that wasn't already present. Some little seeds of anger and rage and lust, most certainly lust, which have always been thus. Have always been mine. And there's guilt, boiling under the skin, festering and pouring filthiness into mine. But I'm not sure if I'm feeling guilty because of him... or because of her... Who am I really cheating on when I'm here with him? When I'm there with her? _Dear god, stop this. Trunks take away this feeling, make me clean, make me real._ I can't feel anything but this deep abiding hatred and it's wrong to be here, to be with him like this and dear lord, Trunks, help me. Make this better, make this right.

Lying on my back now, arms tied above my head, leather belts digging into my flesh. Watching dispassionately as the pale hand produces a sliver of silver. In the darkness; hair, eyes, teeth, knife. All smiling.

**Restraint gives us the illusion of control.**

Short gasp and I'm cut. More pressure than actual pain, marking my skin like a bleeding tattoo. Until Trunks breathes on them, then razorsharp sensation overwhelms me. He's not so careful with that knife, neat lines, then ragged lines slicing skin and skin and skin...creating a pattern of pain, and a flash of blood and light. Pale rays like water purifying. And maybe if I let him cut deep enough, I'll find redemption. Maybe these wounds will heal my soul, my psyche. _Doesn't blood wash us clean of all sins?_

Trunks is cutting and smiling, and I wish I could bleed in colors. Yellow joy and brown disgust, black rage and purple lust. All the colors swirling onto the dingy sheets, a palette of my existence, of his creation. Let it all pour out, bleed it all, give it all. But scarlet is the only thing I see and it floods my vision, tinting everything that macabre shade.

What knowledge or passion disappears into the air with each cut? What small part of me is leaked out through the skin and the pain, never to be reclaimed? Memories of before, memories like old movies, black and white images that never capture reality to the clackity sound of the reel spinning them by. Silent words spill like particles of dust swirling in the faint light, but I can't read them, anymore than I can read the ones cut into my skin. Once they are gone I can't grab hold anymore, not while that damn bond burns bloody the palms of my hands.

Squeeze my eyes shut and surf the pain. Skim along the waves of it, toes and curls of dark hair in the water. Wait for it to tell me something. But the pain is silent, a lavender-haired phantom, and it teaches me nothing I did not already know. That my body will respond to pain the same as pleasure, that my nails will clench around the leather straps and my heels will dig into the mattress. That my throat will close and my thighs will tighten. That I will give in to breathing, and panting, and moaning finally, calling my offering to a god who never hears. That my cock will swell and buck in the hot grip of his hand, while the other brands me with symbols that have no meaning at all. Slashes and upside-down crosses, letters and numbers and nonsense. Images without meaning. Until my arms, legs, chest, neck and belly are covered in blood, and sweat and spit.

Until every drop of what has been spilt here is gone. Never speak it aloud, this hidden design. Never even whisper of what it means...

**Mine. Mine. Mine.**

Until I kiss him, mouth open, and I taste it on those lips, lips that slip me words along with his tongue. A groan deep in my chest where Trunks' fingers play, pulling open the wound above my heart and pressing finger tips inside. His passion tears at my body...at my heart. Puts it under my skin, staining me and Trunks is my confessor now.

Re-opens all the wounds. And he leans forward, tongue lapping at my tattered flesh, drinking me down. And it makes me grind my hips up into the sharp curve of bone and inhale... makes me hear the whispers in the silence. Kissing my throat, little movements of his lips like prayers, over and over, tasting the few inches he can reach. Trunks mouths the words against my throat, and I echo their shape in my mind.

**He doesn't understand. He can't understand. He won't understand.**

Slippery blood coated fingers around his cock, around mine, and arch again..._but not yet...not yet..._ I want to see what it looks like, all of it, the decadent pattern of cut and wound and blood, of hate and fear and lust. But even tilting my head down I can only see it from an angle, only from the top. And that's not right, I need to see it as it was made, the view from the other side. I wonder what it looks like, this intricate pattern of blood that makes no sense, gives no penance. What does this leaking tattoo do to my neck, chest and arms that I cannot see, here, from the inside?

Trunks lays against me, presses skin to skin, rough friction against all the open cuts and wounds, and I cry out and struggle against the leather bonds, until suddenly he stops. I let the lavender head lay there, smoothing, constraining, perfectly still. And when Trunks gets up at last, it is there, on his skin as well; barely etched, the mark, in an opposing pattern on his own body. As a mirror would show him. It is there...and its all the same. _Reach your hand into the looking glass,_ come on, come here, see it from the inside.

**Isn't pain the deepest touch of all? It's been so long since anyone has cared enough to hurt me.**

Restraints are torn and the lean body is thrown onto a dresser, the wall above crumbling plaster dust around us. An unseen hand in the darkness. Oh, I wish that I could see it, but only the walls, the bed, what's left of the dresser will bear silent witness to my tantrum, only Trunks and the darkness will know who did this.

Arms hooked under knees, lavender head in the shattered remains of the room, back against the wood and the wall. Blood and sweat nothing like lubricant. A rough, ragged push in and Trunks twists and arches, screaming his sacrifice. Struggles and I hold him down, can't let him go, can't stop. Find the rhythm, do it, do it harder, make it mean whatever I want. Make it mean whatever he needs. Bright eyes in darkness speak only in dares now. Create something from this mess. I. Dare. You.

**I'm just as much to blame as he is, can't resist the power and the danger. Because everyone is drawn to something stronger than themselves.**

There is beauty in the lavender eyes rolling back, there is order in the long fingers loosing the blood-soaked blade, there is meaning in the taking, in the rutting, in the claiming, in the coming. It's being mounted by the spirit, finally, it's riding and being ridden; the bit chafes my tongue, but it's good to bleed. And around the howling and the keening and the wails Trunks paid in cash to have ignored, listen. Hear it, like rice paper crumpling.

**One of us is being punished. I'm not sure which one.**

Later, I pull the slivers out of Trunks's back, lick the wounds clean, feel him tremble. Trunks doesn't bleed in multi-color. It's all red. Red for anger. Red for lust. Red for rage. Red for hate. Red for death. Ever the same. Now is the time for red. Not sacred but certainly pure. He is simple and absolute and it is only right that I should suffer like a child to come unto him. Acceptance immersed in this abyss. And my palms are cool against his skin, the torrents of blood cooling down scorching flames.

**They're never gonna get those stains out of the sheets.**

Sleep now. I don't want to be awake when he leaves. Because I'm so close to begging him to stay. And maybe he would, but the last time was too much, too painful. This is only safe in the darkness, the light of day makes it too clear, gives it a meaning it shouldn't have.

**And I won't speak. I can't refuse him again.**

Later still, I awaken on the cusp of evening, know by smell and by memory that I am alone. Reach under the empty pillow and pull out a switchblade, still coated with my insides. And it seems to me that there must be some way to make the thing work..._if I can turn it just so,_ force it to refract the light and send me a glimmer, just the faintest hint of me in the redness.

But there is only blue and silver and dark. The broken headboard. The peeling wallpaper. A spidery web of shattered plaster spirally out from a hole the size of a man's head. Dust that swirls like spirits above.

But here, there is no more. Just bloodied sheets, healing skin and a handful of people who will miss me, will wonder where I went. So I'll make up something pretty for them, tie it up in a bright package and a spiffy bow. _I'm the hero after all._ And a sensu bean will make my chest smooth again, leaving only the scars on the inside.

Happens every time.

Just keep moving. Keep waiting for the next evening when my palms itch to distraction. Keep the blood-coated switchblade in my pocket until then. Because I'll need it again.

Desecrate II

_(Trunks' POV)_

**We've only once had a real conversation. No deep reflections, no explanations, just clarification, of what we're doing, of what it all means. Illumination isn't found in words, just in actions and my returning every single time is clear enough.  
**  
_"This won't happen again," he said, pulling his shirt over still bleeding flesh. _

Only Gohan could manage to sound pretentious and self-righteous in a room that still stank of spilt blood and semen. I lit a cigarette and smirked. "Shouldn't and won't are two different things, Saiyaman."

He scowled and pushed away. "I'm leaving now."

"Yeah," I replied quietly. "You leave. You're so good at that."

He raked a hand through my hair and pulled my head back roughly, knocking my scalp against the hard wood.

"You smell like her," I gritted out.

He never mentions Videl.

"Why do you have to smell like her?"

"Because I can't leave her," he said with a frown, releasing my hair while a lazy finger traced over the tattered flesh on my neck.

"You mean you won't." Nothing new, same old story. And he hears me, of course. Always has. Nothing will change though. Does he see her when he looks at me, I wonder?

"Why do you come here?"

I shrugged, leaned over the side of the bed, and picked up my trousers. "Because you need me."

"Don't you have a better reason?"

I didn't respond.

He swung his feet over the covers and sat on the edge of the bed, eyes staring sightlessly into peeling wallpaper. "Absolution," he whispered.

"What?" I asked, lighting a new cigarette and reaching for my t-shirt.

He ran a hand over his brow. "In the Dark Ages, penitents could purchase atonement from their confessors. No Acts of Contrition, just- money. They could... buy... forgiveness."

Socks. Boots. "Sounds like a great marketing strategy to me."

"But it wasn't real."

"Did they think it was real?" I asked him, locating my belt on the side of the bed. "Did they believe it?"

"I'm sure they did," he replied sadly.

"Then what's the difference?"

He looked up at me in surprise. "You think God can be bought off?"

"You forget, Gohan, I've met our God." I scoffed. "If he'd been listening in the first place, then they wouldn't have needed a priest. And yes, I believe that everyone has their price."

He turned to face me. "What's yours?"

And I paused, cigarettes and coat in frozen hands. "Me? I'm obviously cheap."

"Trunks..."

"Look, you can call this atonement, you can call it an act of contrition...Believe whatever you want if it helps you sleep at night." I inhaled deeply, the smoke calming me. "To me it's just fucking. I'll always be here waiting. Every. God. Damn. Time."

**We don't talk anymore.  
**  
It starts in the pit of my stomach. Not in my groin, as you might expect, not even in the increasingly familiar heaviness between my legs. No, it's higher, a gnawing, all-consuming ache in my abdomen.

Oh, for fuck's sake. Let's call it what it is, shall we? It's hunger. All of it, it's all... just... hunger. And I hate to call it that because food is something I can't live without, yes, food is something I need, but damn it, he shouldn't be.

**So I stave off the urge as long as I can.**

But it begins to take up all of my attention, the gnawing hunger, the burning need. Trembling hands and a ringing in my ears and every cell in my body screaming "Gohan." The bond pulls at me, begging me to give into it's siren's call. And finally it gets to be too much, the shaking and the craving and the images splattered like blood on the backs of my eyelids, and I grab my car keys and head for the door, hating myself every fucking step of the way. I race along the highway, cigarette dangling from my lips, stereo up so loud that I can't hear myself think, to keep from abandoning the car and flying there instead, and I mutter the words over and over again, all the way there, like a mantra:

**"This is the last time. This is the last time. This is the last time." **

Lies you tell yourself when you can't face the truth. Lies that help me do this again and again, because each time I truly want to believe it's the last time. But this will never end and I'll always be waiting. Every damn time the bond calls to me.

I loosen my grip on the wheel and wonder for the millionth time how my hands always know exactly where to go. The same place every damn time. Pull into the darkened lot, the wonder gone with the slam of a door. I turn the key in the lock and step into the moon lit room. Flipping on the bedside lamp and closing the blinds, I strip out of my clothes.

It's six half smoked cigarettes and into my first rented porn before he shows up. I've closed my eyes somewhere in the middle of it, waiting. He turns on the ceiling fan, riffling dead air and pulling cigarette smoke around him like a fog. Frames flicker in the static of white, half-real, and for a moment I'm afraid if I blink, he'll disappear.

**"Late from saving the world again, Saiyaman?" **

Gentle swoosh of clothing hitting the floor. "Yeah."

**He looks tired.**

I shouldn't think about that. Whatever goes on outside this room falls strictly in the boundaries of 'Don't Want To Know'. But I can't help but wonder what's been stealing his sleep. Sadistically hoping it's thoughts of me that made him look like death barely warmed up.

I turn away as he crawls beneath the covers, close my eyes. Warm flesh to warm flesh. I roll over, bite my lip, and begin. I always start. It's easier on us both if I take the responsibility.

**Less guilt for him.**

I can feel him shake under my exploring hands. This act is still sinful to him, whereas for me it is merely wrong, a necessary evil, and I don't think either one of us has figured out the difference yet. We keep our eyes closed as mouths meet and fingers search. I can feel him trace the lines of my muscles and bones. I'm not sure if Gohan knows about the unfinished bond, his Saiyan upbringing lacking, but I think he's noticed my significant weight loss in the last couple years. I can tell by the way he runs his fingers over my ribs and handles me like a porcelain. Perhaps he's heard, I don't know. If he has, he's not telling me. If he knows, it still doesn't change anything.

Desperate hands caressing every exposed surface, tongues battling for dominance, rough kisses up the length of my throat. No promises, no whispered affections, no bullshit. And it's so real and so pointless that it makes me cringe. But I can't help it, and I can't stop myself, and... I. Will. Always. Come. Back. Because I have the world's shortest attention span and I keep forgetting the incessant stupidity of it all when I start to drown in the bond again.

His hands work against the back of my neck, scrambling for purchase. He used to love to pull my hair, twisting his fingers deep and hard in the long strands, and tug my head back, exposing my throat to him. No locks of lavender hair now, shorn away in a fit of anger. But you make do with what you've got, and he thrusts his hands into what's left of my hair and pulls my head to the side and I'm already shivering in anticipation, already aware of what's to come. And as soon as I feel that sharp pain at my jugular vein, as soon as his teeth tear me open I can disappear inside him. I can disappear in the memory of my Gohan and forget the world around us.

No regrets. _Don't think about it_, I think desperately as his lips fasten and swallow and take all of me and I disappear down his throat, don't think about how much it hurts, not on the surface, but somewhere deep inside. Blood of my blood and flesh of my flesh. My mind bleeds, thick and uncertain and now even that private space is filled with him and I'm not alone.

**Drink here and live forever.**

He looks up at me with something closely akin to longing and I realize that we haven't bled enough tonight. Hurt enough. Not by half. The scent of guilt permeates everything. He needs to hurt. He needs the pain to ease the guilt. Reading the demand in his eyes, I lean over and gather our belts from the pile of discarded clothing on the floor.

**Restraint gives us the illusion of control.**

Switchblade cool against my fingers. He'll try to convince himself later that I planned it this way, that it was all intended, crime and punishment and taking what he had coming from the one who deserves the most to give it. He can't conceive of the way things just happen, the waking up with that desperate yearning and the pointless union in this bed and the screaming and fucking and weeping and bleeding that seems to take place of its own volition. He doesn't understand that sometimes you just open your eyes one day and you're kneeling over your bond-mate, who's tied to a bed, his belt securing the right wrist and yours securing the left, and he's looking up at you, begging for something, anything that will make you both feel again, and you've got this knife in your hands and this tightness in your chest and what the fuck are you supposed to do in a situation like that? Invention is the father of destruction, isn't it?

You take the tools at hand and you put them to good use and you give the one in charge what he wants. And you cut and you cut and you cut. And I can see myself bleeding out of his wounds as the incisions begin.

Letters and numbers, insanity in random shapes, darkness seeping into the mattress. _"What do they mean?" _he asked me once. _"What do you want them to mean?" _I retorted, without even thinking. Who the fuck cares? But that's not good enough for him. He wants a meaning. Wants ancient symbols that spell out blessing and forgiveness. All roads lead to redemption. Except... and this is the part he doesn't get, will never get... they don't. Some roads don't lead anywhere. Nowhere but stolen moments and shadows and sticky-blood stained sheets and more and more and more pain. And I don't want it to mean anything, because I know that the minute it does, I'm not gonna be able to let go.

But the word I always try to ignore is the one I write last, on an expanse of flesh so tattered and torn that even I can't read the fucking letters I carve there.

**Mine. Mine. Mine.**

I'm still bleeding... I must be, there's blood everywhere, my hands sticky and dark. How can I still be bleeding? Haven't I been drained dry yet? My blood, his blood staining the sheets and _it feels good, doesn't it, Gohan?_ It feels good to suffer for our sufferings. And you don't fucking deserve that, you bastard, you don't deserve this absolution, this purification by blade, you don't deserve to have the scales tipped in your favor, but I can't hold it in anymore. I can't keep this grief and this hurt and these bleeding wounds inside me, god damn it, I don't want this, I never wanted this, _so you take it, Gohan._ Take forgiveness in your screaming and your pain and your blood in the bed. Because I, for one, am so fucking sick of bleeding for the sins I haven't committed. The ones I keep committing.

The pain hits him suddenly and he flinches, doubtless assuming behind tightly closed eyelids that I have cut him again. But the blade lies limp in my hand and he doesn't see the salt tears that fall into his wounds and make him cringe.

I run my hands over his chest, smearing and pulling and tugging, his blood inching between my fingers. I want inside. The urge hits me so suddenly that I almost say it, scream it in raw, sobbing tones. _I want inside, Gohan. _I bite down hard through my lip to keep the words from escaping, but the cry is deafening in my brain.I. Want. Inside. I want to reach inside of him and drag that hateful, denying heart out of his chest. Wrench it out and crawl inside the empty husk it leaves and live there forever. _But it doesn't work that way, does it, Babe?_ I'm not an acceptable substitute. You'll never be willing to give up your soul for me.

But he doesn't notice. His eyes are closed and there are wounds enough inside his own mind to make him scream, so what fucking difference does it make if I do the same to the surface of his skin? All he can feel any more is pain. Pain when we're apart, pain when we're together.

I run my tongue over the wounds, drink him down, swallow him whole. Take, drink, because this is my blood... gulp hungrily, pull back and watch in fascination as dry gashes fill with dark liquid again, kiss it away. Press lips together and delve deep inside, close eyes and disappear within. Maybe, just maybe I can find me in him, if I drink long enough. Deep enough. Find myself again. He moans deep in the back of his throat as I give and take everything that he has, dispensing pain with one hand and pleasure with the other, tugging at the edges of the wounds with my fingertips. Gohan gasps, his head thrown back and tears trickling from the corners of his eyes.

"Hush, baby," I whisper against his neck, so softly that I don't think he can hear me. "Ssh." I drape my body carefully over his own, muscles and bones fitting together perfectly, pressing him to the bloodstained sheets. Maybe, just maybe, if I lie here perfectly still, I can seep into the wounds... but his blood burns my flesh and he's starting to whimper from the pain. I bury my face in the side of his neck and lay my hands gently over the gashes in his sides while his soft cries echo in the darkness.

He doesn't understand. He can't understand. He won't understand.

I don't know what to do for him. _I'm sorry, Gohan, _but I don't know how to take the pain away, I only know how to give it. That's all I'm good at. Cutting and burning and blowing away the last of this life and trying to forget.

So I pull away.

Sticky slickness as our bodies pull apart and it's all written on me, the mirror image of everything I have engraved, the secret of his sufferings, the hidden, darkly spoken language of an unfinished bond. There's a look on his face that I can't read, a horror and a sickness and a lust. Yes, lust. Because even under all that pain the bond pulls at him, just like it pulls at me. I don't have the redemption he's searching for. Not me. I can't fix anything. It doesn't always make sense, why do I have to be the one to figure it out? _I don't know, okay, Gohan?_ I don't know how to make it all better. There's nothing I can do for you. Bleeding for your sins and cleaning up your mess and I can't seem to remember when the fuck I became the responsible one.

And I can't pretend to understand the sound of snapped leather, the torn restraints, the angry hands closing around me. Can't decipher the meaning of being hurled through the air or the smashing against plaster walls or of landing splayed and confused across the dresser, and this time I don't care. Smirk on his lips and terror in his eyes, but this way, at least, I don't fucking have to be the one in charge anymore. He drags my legs up and pins me to the dresser, grinding against flesh and bone. I scream. But oh, dear God, it feels good. Feels so good to feel anything again. Shove and push and break me, legs tangling and fingers cracking my wrist bones.

_So let's see how good you are at this, Gohan. _Give it to me good. Try a little harder. Let's see if you and your cracked and bleeding heart have the balls to give me what I need. Because it's my turn to feel the pain. This is the way it should be, because when he takes me this way, when he hurts me more, I can feel his disgust and hatred. I can feel how much he regrets me in every single thrust. And if he feels that guilty about it, then it's all clearly his fault, and I'm absolved of any responsibility towards the fucked-up freakshow that my life has become. Maybe I can suffer enough, here, now, in this room, with his teeth gnashing in my face and destroyed dresser digging into my back, maybe I can hurt enough to put things right. I've never believed in guilt, but I'm a big believer in karma. And bad things happen to good people, no matter how righteous you live. But then I'm more sinner than saint.

**I'm just as much to blame as he is, can't resist the power and the danger. Because everyone is drawn to something stronger than themselves.**

And sometimes I awake with my skin buzzing, longing for the sensation of Gohan's fists. It might not be an urge I'm proud of, but I've never had a bit of pride when it comes to hunger. And I can close my eyes against the bloody ragged remnants of his guilt all I want to but I can't close my eyes to the fact that I come harder and scream louder with him than with anyone else in my entire life.

**Isn't pain the deepest touch of all? It's been so long since anyone has cared enough to hurt me.**

I just want him to drive into me harder and make me scream louder. I want him to split me apart. I want him to break me into pieces. Shatter me until there's nothing left, Gohan. Bleed me just a little more. Hurt me until you can forget how much you wish you were hurting yourself. Use me to atone and perhaps it's simply that I've been his whore all along.

**One of us is being punished. I'm not sure which one.**

Later he carries me back to the bed, lays me gently on the sheets. With careful fingertips he pulls each splinter of wood from my back, my body shaking so hard he can barely grip them. Drops them in a pile on the bedside table where the blood glints in dim lamplight, firewood to burn the heretic.

**They're never gonna get these stains out of the sheets.**

When the very last jagged splinter is gone from my flesh, he leans down and gently licks the blood from my wounds, his tongue working into the torn flesh. I dig my fingers into the pillow and screw my eyes shut and bite down hard on my lower lip to keep from speaking, keep from weeping, keep from begging. So fucking close to begging him to stay, to take me back with him, to toss me on the dresser and fuck me blind again. So close to breaking into hoarse, raw sobs and screaming "Don't leave me. Please for God's sake don't fucking leave me again."

**But I can't speak. I can't face that refusal again.**

I wait until he lays down wearily beside me and closes his eyes before I let the tears fall. Silently, so the darkness hides them. Because I don't want him to ever know how much this hurts. When I know he is asleep I rise and pull clothing slowly over my tattered skin, find my smokes and car keys, get ready to go. I don't look at him any more than I possibly have to; better not to invite temptation. Better just to let him sleep. The sun will be up soon.

We stayed all night once. Once. I opened my eyes the next morning to see his sleeping face, his hair playfully mussed. Something inside me broke, cracked open into sharp, jagged pieces and scattered me on the floor.

I'm not sure what happened after that. I remember screaming and crying and shoving him off the bed, eliciting a startled cry when he cracked his head against the bedside table.  
Now I always leave before he wakes.

I feel a sharp pain in my side as I pull on my coat. Reaching beneath my shirt, I dig a long splinter out of my hip, stuck deep into flesh. He forgot one. Let it slip. Innocent bystander. Necessary evil. A small sacrifice to the gods of guilt and shame.

**Happens every time.**

I let my hand drift towards him but stop my fingers a few inches away from spiky hair and gently closed eyes. Pull my hand back and shove it in my pocket to keep it from straying where it's not allowed to go. Grasp the switchblade instead, the random spatters of blood on its blade a half-assed reflection of him. Twist it shut between my fingers before placing it under the pillow for him to find in the morning. Leave it there, where it's no longer my responsibility or my fault.


End file.
